Once you have identified a house you are interested in placing an offer, ask your real-estate agent to put together a price estimate for comparable homes (or comps search) near the one you are interested in. This should help you estimate if the home is over/undervalued relative to the neighborhood. Note that this alone is not enough to estimate how much you should be bidding. You should also factor in two different costs that you will eventually have to pay in addition to the down payment a) closing costs b) costs of repairs, replacements, and other hidden costs of home ownership.

Tips:

• To estimate closing costs (thousands of dollars) please use this widely-available calculator tool.

• For a list of typical renovation projects refer to Homeolu.